DOCSLIB.ORG

The End of Work

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The End of Work • • • THE END OF WORK The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era JEREMY RIFKIN A Jeremy P. TarcherlPutnam Book published by G. P. Putnam's Sons New York Contents Acknowledgments ix Foreword by Robert L. Heilbroner xi Introduction xv PART I THE Two FACES OF TECHNOLOGY 1. The End of Work 3 2. Trickle-down Technology and Market Realities 15 3. Visions of Techno-Paradise 42 PART II THE THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 4. Crossing into the High-Tech Frontier 59 5. Technology and the African-American Experience 69 6. The Great Automation Debate 81 7. Post-Fordism 90 PART III THE DECLINE OF THE GLOBAL LABOR FORCE 8. No More Farmers 109 9. Hanging Up the Blue Collar 128 10. The Last Service Worker 141 PART IV THE PRICE OF PROGRESS 11. High-Tech Winners and Losers 165 12. Requiem for the Working Class 181 13. The Fate of Nations 198 4. A More Dangerous World 208 PART V THE DAWN OF THE POST-MARKET ERA 15. Re-engineering the Work Week 221 16. A New Social Contract 236 17. Empowering the Third Sector 249 18. Globalizing the Social Economy 275 Notes 294 Bibliography 330 Index 337 Foreword Robert L. Heilbroner CONOMISTS HAVE ALWAYS been uneasy about what machinery Edoes for us and to us. On the one hand, machines are the very em­ bodiment of the investment that drives a capitalist economy. On the other hand, most of the time when a machine moves in, a worker moves out-sometimes many workers. Economists have always granted that a machine may displace a few workers here and there, but in the end, they have maintained, productivity will be vastly aug­ mented, and as a consequence, the national income. But who gets the income? In 1819 the famous economist David Ricardo wrote that the amount of employment in an economy was of no consequence, as long as rent and profits, out of which flowed its new investment, were undiminished. "Indeed?" replied Simonde de Sismondi, a well-known Swiss critic of the times. "Wealth is every­ thing, men are absolutely nothing? What? ... In truth then, there is nothing more to wish for than that the king, remaining alone on the island, by constantly turning a crank, might produce, through auto­ mata, all the output of England."l Jeremy Rifkin's mind-opening book is about a world in which corporations have taken the place of kings, turning cranks that set into motion the mechanical, electrical, and electronic automata that pro­ vide the goods and services of the nation. This is by no means a recent development If we could look down over the man-machine history of the United States-or for that matter, any modem nation-we would see that for two hundred years there has been a great migration of xi xii Foreword workers leaving jobs that technology had taken away, looking for others that it was creating. As the curtain rises on this drama, at the beginning of the 19th cen­ tury, machines were not highly visible. North, south, east and west, farming was the quintessential occupation; largely manual, helped along with hoes and spades, horse-drawn plows, carts, and the like. Then, around the middle of the century, things began to change. Cyrus McCormick invented the reaper; John Deere the steel plow; the tractor appeared. As a consequence, by the three-quarter mark of the century, the proportion of the national labor force in agriculture had decreased from around three quarters to half; by 1900 to a third, by 1940 to a fifth, today to about 3 percent. What happened to those whose jobs were taken over by machines? They moved to other fields, in which technology was creating new places for work. In 1810 a mere 75,000 persons worked in the infant "manfactories" that made pig iron and lumber and the like; fifty years later, over 1,500,000; by 1910, over 8 million; by 1960, twice that. In terms of percentages, the industrial labor force grew by leaps and bounds until it offered work to some 35 percent of the total labor force. The figures did not, however, climb indefinitely. Technology was not only opening up jobs in the new automobile plants, home appli­ ance factories, and power plants, but also trimming them down as the assembly line followed the lathe, as drills and presses increased their speeds, and as remarkable new "calculators" began to simplify the work of foremen. Between 1960 and 1990, output of manufactured goods of all kinds continued to rise, but the number of jobs needed to create that flow of production fell by half. We are almost finished with our drama. During all the time that labor was moving into, and then out of the factory, a third great sector was offering growing possibilities for employment. This was the ex­ panding range of "service" employments-teachers and lawyers, nurses and doctors, maids and baby-sitters, government officials and traffic cops, file clerks, typists, custodians, salespeople. It is impossible to estimate with any degree of accuracy the number of "service" employees in the early 19th century, but by 1870 there were perhaps 3 million in the diverse branches of this sector, and by the 1990S nearly 90 million. Service employment thus saved this-and other modem economies-from absolutely devastating unemployment. 2 As with manufacturing, technology in the service sector created with one hand and took away with the other. The sector grew on the Foreword xiii back of the typewriter and the telephone, shrank under the impact of the Xerox machine and the mail order catalogue. But it was the computer, of course, that brings the drama to a close, threatening to allow the corporation to sit on its island, turning its crank while the automata go to work. That is the historic transformation about which Jeremy Rifkin is writing. His book is rich in detail, absorbing in its real-life relevance, and large in scope, spelling out the global, as well as the national impli­ cations of the change in the reach and impact of technology in our time. If he is right-and his range and depth of research strongly suggests that he is right-we are pushing the relationship of machines and work beyond the uneasy accommodation of the last two hundred years into a new relationship about whose configuration we can say little except that it will have to be markedly different from that of the past Rifkin explores some of the obvious changes that will be forced upon us by this emerging relationship-changes that range from the dislocations and dysfunctions that will assuredly accompany a studied indifference to the problem, through reconfigurations in the pat­ terns of work life as dramatic as those that separate today's work-years and work-days from those in Dickenss time, to possibilities for the creation of a new employment-offering sector that I will allow him to describe. This is a book that ought to become the center of a long-lasting and deep-probing conversation for the nation. I would describe it as an indispensable introduction to a problem that we will be living with for the rest of our own and our children's lives. Robert L. Heilbroner is the author of many books and articles in economics, most recently Visions of the Future, to be published by Oxford University Press in early 1995. Introduction LOBAL UNEMPLOYMENT has now reached its highest level since G the great depression of the 1930s. More than 800 million human beings are now unemployed or underemployed in the world.l That figure is likely to rise sharply between now and the tum of the century as millions of new entrants into the workforce find themselves without jobs, many victims of a technology revolution that is fast replacing human beings with machines in virtually every sector and industry of the global economy. After years of wishful forecasts and false starts, the new computer and communications technologies are finally making their long-anticipated impact on the workplace and the economy, throwing the world community into the grip of a third great industrial revolution. Already, millions of workers have been permanently elimi­ nated from the economic process, and whole job categories have shrunk, been restructured, or disappeared. The Information Age has arrived. In the years ahead, new, more sophisticated software technologies are going to bring civilization ever closer to a near-workerless world. In the agricultural, manufacturing, and service sectors, machines are quickly replacing human labor and promise an economy of near automated production by the mid­ decades of the twenty-first century. The wholesale substitution of machines for workers is going to force every nation to rethink the role of human beings in the social process. Redefining opportunities and responsibilities for millions of people in a society absent of mass formal employment is likely to be the single most pressing social issue of the coming century. While the public continues to hear talk of better economic times ahead, working people everywhere remain perplexed over what ap- xv xvi Introduction pears to be a "jobless recovery." Every day, transnational corporations announce that they are becoming more globally competitive. We are told that profits are steadily rising. Yet, at the same time, companies are announcing massive layoffs. In the single month of January 1994, AmericaS largest employers laid off more than 108,000 workers. Most of the cutbacks came in service industries, where corporate restruc­ turing and the introduction of new laborsaving technologies are result­ ing in greater productivity, larger profits, and fewer jobs.2 We are entering a new phase in world history-one in which fewer and fewer workers will be needed to produce the goods and services for the global population.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Khq 6H[ 7Kuhdwhqhg Wkh 6Wdwh ,Oolflw 6H[Xdolw\ 1Dwlrqdolvp Dqg 3Rolwlfv Lq &Rorqldo 1Ljhuld ² E\ 6Dkhhg $Ghulq
    :KHQ6H[7KUHDWHQHGWKH6WDWH,OOLFLW6H[XDOLW\1DWLRQDOLVPDQG3ROLWLFV LQ&RORQLDO1LJHULD²E\6DKHHG$GHULQWR UHYLHZ -XGLWK$%\ILHOG &DQDGLDQ-RXUQDORI+LVWRU\9ROXPH1XPEHUVSULQJVXPPHUSULQWHPSVpWp SS 5HYLHZ 3XEOLVKHGE\8QLYHUVLW\RI7RURQWR3UHVV '2,FQK )RUDGGLWLRQDOLQIRUPDWLRQDERXWWKLVDUWLFOH KWWSVPXVHMKXHGXDUWLFOH Access provided by Fondren Library, Rice University (17 May 2016 17:11 GMT) 206 reviews family structure. It adds to the comparative analysis of Puerto Rican com- munities in the Midwest with other historical groups, such as Mexican Americans (Lilia Ferna´ndez’s Brown in the Windy City, Chicago, 2012). We Are Left without a Father Here exposes the complexities derived from a colonial apparatus that is carving its own formula of modernization. In the process, concepts of class, gender, and race intersect in very subtle ways throughout the migration process. This book can be used as a reference or complementary text for a college and graduate level course. It is a valuable source for any course on American, Caribbean, Latino, and Latin American studies, and any other related fields. Milagros Denis-Rosario, Hunter College, City University of New York Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa Le Moyen-Orient, l’Asie centrale, et l’Afrique When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria, 1900–1958, by Saheed Aderinto. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2015. xviii, 241 pp. $95.00 US (cloth), $32.00 US (paper). In seven engaging chapters and an epilogue, Saheed Aderinto has pro- duced a very important contribution to African social history and Nigerian historiography specifically. His intellectual journey, as revealed in his introduction, is a ‘‘must read’’ for graduate students for this book is the outcome of a scholar who listened closely to his sources and grappled with the complex realities they revealed.
    [Show full text]
  • The Contagion of Capital
    The Jus Semper Global Alliance In Pursuit of the People and Planet Paradigm Sustainable Human Development March 2021 ESSAYS ON TRUE DEMOCRACY AND CAPITALISM The Contagion of Capital Financialised Capitalism, COVID-19, and the Great Divide John Bellamy Foster, R. Jamil Jonna and Brett Clark he U.S. economy and society at the start of T 2021 is more polarised than it has been at any point since the Civil War. The wealthy are awash in a flood of riches, marked by a booming stock market, while the underlying population exists in a state of relative, and in some cases even absolute, misery and decline. The result is two national economies as perceived, respectively, by the top and the bottom of society: one of prosperity, the other of precariousness. At the level of production, economic stagnation is diminishing the life expectations of the vast majority. At the same time, financialisation is accelerating the consolidation of wealth by a very few. Although the current crisis of production associated with the COVID-19 pandemic has sharpened these disparities, the overall problem is much longer and more deep-seated, a manifestation of the inner contradictions of monopoly-finance capital. Comprehending the basic parameters of today’s financialised capitalist system is the key to understanding the contemporary contagion of capital, a corrupting and corrosive cash nexus that is spreading to all corners of the U.S. economy, the globe, and every aspect of human existence. TJSGA/Essay/SD (E052) March 2021/Bellamy Foster, Jonna and Clark 1 Free Cash and the Financialisation of Capital “Capitalism,” as left economist Robert Heilbroner wrote in The Nature and Logic of Capitalism in 1985, is “a social formation in which the accumulation of capital becomes the organising basis for socioeconomic life.”1 Economic crises in capitalism, whether short term or long term, are primarily crises of accumulation, that is, of the savings-and- investment (or surplus-and-investment) dynamics.
    [Show full text]
  • Overview: Japanese Archaeological Research Trends 20141 Takakura Hiroaki2
    Overview: Japanese Archaeological Research Trends 20141 Takakura Hiroaki2 The Japanese Archaeological Association, established in April 1948 on the occasion of the excavation of the Toro3 site in Shizuoka prefecture, while being an academic organization representing Japanese archaeology and having a large membership, for a long time remained a private (unincorporated) organization. Within the Association there was demand for conversion to an incorporated association,4 but it was not possible to clear the necessary conditions, and this goal went unachieved. Subsequently, with the establishment of the Intermediate Corporation Act 5 the Association became a limited liability intermediary corporation6 in March 2004, and transitioned to its current identity7 as a general incorporated association in June 2009. Over this interval, conditions attending Japanese archaeology have changed. Among specialists in archaeology who work as researchers there are faculty members at academic institutions such as universities, personnel in charge of buried cultural properties at regional governments and private investigative organizations, curators at museums, and others. There are also those who do not hold jobs in archaeology but nevertheless produce outstanding research in the field. Among these researchers, persons at least 25 years of age who wish to join may become members of the Association if approved as qualified. At the peak time in the year 2002 there were 7,081 researchers holding jobs in archaeology. By contrast the Association had 3,651 members, or approximately 52 percent of these 1[Trends in Japanese Archaeological Research, 2014, is a partial translation of “Nihon kōkogaku kenkyū no dōkō” 日本考古学研究の動向, in Nihon kōkogaku nenpō 67 (2014 nendoban) 日本考古学年報 67（2014 年度版) (Archaeologia Japonica 67 [2014 Fiscal Year Issue]) (Nihon Kōkogaku Kyōkai, 2016), pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Paradoxes Situations That Seems to Defy Intuition
    Paradoxes Situations that seems to defy intuition PDF generated using the open source mwlib toolkit. See http://code.pediapress.com/ for more information. PDF generated at: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 07:26:17 UTC Contents Articles Introduction 1 Paradox 1 List of paradoxes 4 Paradoxical laughter 16 Decision theory 17 Abilene paradox 17 Chainstore paradox 19 Exchange paradox 22 Kavka's toxin puzzle 34 Necktie paradox 36 Economy 38 Allais paradox 38 Arrow's impossibility theorem 41 Bertrand paradox 52 Demographic-economic paradox 53 Dollar auction 56 Downs–Thomson paradox 57 Easterlin paradox 58 Ellsberg paradox 59 Green paradox 62 Icarus paradox 65 Jevons paradox 65 Leontief paradox 70 Lucas paradox 71 Metzler paradox 72 Paradox of thrift 73 Paradox of value 77 Productivity paradox 80 St. Petersburg paradox 85 Logic 92 All horses are the same color 92 Barbershop paradox 93 Carroll's paradox 96 Crocodile Dilemma 97 Drinker paradox 98 Infinite regress 101 Lottery paradox 102 Paradoxes of material implication 104 Raven paradox 107 Unexpected hanging paradox 119 What the Tortoise Said to Achilles 123 Mathematics 127 Accuracy paradox 127 Apportionment paradox 129 Banach–Tarski paradox 131 Berkson's paradox 139 Bertrand's box paradox 141 Bertrand paradox 146 Birthday problem 149 Borel–Kolmogorov paradox 163 Boy or Girl paradox 166 Burali-Forti paradox 172 Cantor's paradox 173 Coastline paradox 174 Cramer's paradox 178 Elevator paradox 179 False positive paradox 181 Gabriel's Horn 184 Galileo's paradox 187 Gambler's fallacy 188 Gödel's incompleteness theorems
    [Show full text]
  • ASIAN REPRESENTATIONS of AUSTRALIA Alison Elizabeth Broinowski 12 December 2001 a Thesis Submitted for the Degree Of
    ABOUT FACE: ASIAN REPRESENTATIONS OF AUSTRALIA Alison Elizabeth Broinowski 12 December 2001 A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University ii Statement This thesis is my own work. Preliminary research was undertaken collaboratively with a team of Asian Australians under my co-direction with Dr Russell Trood and Deborah McNamara. They were asked in 1995-96 to collect relevant material, in English and vernacular languages, from the public sphere in their countries of origin. Three monographs based on this work were published in 1998 by the Centre for the Study of Australia Asia Relations at Griffith University and these, together with one unpublished paper, are extensively cited in Part 2. The researchers were Kwak Ki-Sung, Anne T. Nguyen, Ouyang Yu, and Heidi Powson and Lou Miles. Further research was conducted from 2000 at the National Library with a team of Chinese and Japanese linguists from the Australian National University, under an ARC project, ‘Asian Accounts of Australia’, of which Shun Ikeda and I are Chief Investigators. Its preliminary findings are cited in Part 2. Alison Broinowski iii Abstract This thesis considers the ways in which Australia has been publicly represented in ten Asian societies in the twentieth century. It shows how these representations are at odds with Australian opinion leaders’ assertions about being a multicultural society, with their claims about engagement with Asia, and with their understanding of what is ‘typically’ Australian. It reviews the emergence and development of Asian regionalism in the twentieth century, and considers how Occidentalist strategies have come to be used to exclude and marginalise Australia.
    [Show full text]
  • AN ENERGY REVOLUTION for the 21ST CENTURY to Tackle Climate Change, Renewable Energy Technologies, Like Wind, Can Be Embraced by Adopting a DE Pathway
    DECENTRALISING POWER: AN ENERGY REVOLUTION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY To tackle climate change, renewable energy technologies, like wind, can be embraced by adopting a DE pathway. ©Greenpeace/Weckenmann. Cover: Solar thermal installation. ©Langrock/Zenit/Greenpeace. Canonbury Villas London N1 2PN www.greenpeace.org.uk t: +44 (0)20 7865 8100 DECENTRALISING POWER: 1 AN ENERGY REVOLUTION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY FOREWORD KEN LIVINGSTONE, MAYOR OF LONDON I am delighted to have been asked by Greenpeace to contribute a foreword to this timely report. Climate change has now become the problem the world cannot ignore. Addressing future global warming, and adapting to it now, will require making fundamental changes to the way we live. How we produce, distribute and use energy is key to this. My London Energy Strategy set out how decentralised electricity generation could deliver huge CO2 reductions in London by enabling the convergence of heat and power generation, leading to massive growth in renewable energy production, and providing the cornerstone of a renewable hydrogen energy economy. Decentralised energy allows the financial costs and energy losses associated with the long-distance national transmission system to be reduced and savings passed on to consumers. Bringing energy production closer to people’s lives helps in our efforts to promote energy efficiency. Security of supply can be ©Liane Harris. improved, with power blackouts reduced. The UK could take the opportunity to develop expertise and technologies, leading the developed world, and facilitating the developing world’s path to a sustainable energy future. In London the opportunities for decentralised energy supply range from solar panels on Londoners’ homes, to adapting existing full-sized power stations to more efficient combined heat and power systems supplying thousands of businesses and residential buildings.
    [Show full text]
  • A Business Lawyer's Bibliography: Books Every Dealmaker Should Read
    585 A Business Lawyer’s Bibliography: Books Every Dealmaker Should Read Robert C. Illig Introduction There exists today in America’s libraries and bookstores a superb if underappreciated resource for those interested in teaching or learning about business law. Academic historians and contemporary financial journalists have amassed a huge and varied collection of books that tell the story of how, why and for whom our modern business world operates. For those not currently on the front line of legal practice, these books offer a quick and meaningful way in. They help the reader obtain something not included in the typical three-year tour of the law school classroom—a sense of the context of our practice. Although the typical law school curriculum places an appropriately heavy emphasis on theory and doctrine, the importance of a solid grounding in context should not be underestimated. The best business lawyers provide not only legal analysis and deal execution. We offer wisdom and counsel. When we cast ourselves in the role of technocrats, as Ronald Gilson would have us do, we allow our advice to be defined downward and ultimately commoditized.1 Yet the best of us strive to be much more than legal engineers, and our advice much more than a mere commodity. When we master context, we rise to the level of counselors—purveyors of judgment, caution and insight. The question, then, for young attorneys or those who lack experience in a particular field is how best to attain the prudence and judgment that are the promise of our profession. For some, insight is gained through youthful immersion in a family business or other enterprise or experience.
    [Show full text]
  • 477 Radiocaron Dates and Archaeology of the Late
    Radiocarbon Dates and Archaeology of the Late Pleistocene in the Japanese Islands Item Type Article; text Authors Ono, Akira; Sato, Hiroyuki; Tsutsumi, Takashi; Kudo, Yuichiro Citation Ono, A., Sato, H., Tsutsumi, T., & Kudo, Y. (2002). Radiocarbon dates and archaeology of the Late Pleistocene in the Japanese islands. Radiocarbon, 44(2), 477-494. DOI 10.1017/S0033822200031854 Publisher Department of Geosciences, The University of Arizona Journal Radiocarbon Rights Copyright © by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona. All rights reserved. Download date 10/10/2021 14:25:28 Item License http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ Version Final published version Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/654585 RADIOCARBON, Vol 44, Nr 2, 2002, p 477–494 © 2002 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona RADIOCARON DATES AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE LATE PLEISTOCENE IN THE JAPANESE ISLANDS Akira Ono1,2 • Hiroyuki Sato3 • Takashi Tsutsumi4 • Yuichiro Kudo1 ABSTRACT. We discuss the radiocarbon chronology of Late Pleistocene archaeology in the Japanese islands. In sum, 429 samples from more than 100 archaeological sites were compiled and then divided into three periods and four stages. The Early Upper Paleolithic, characterized by Trapezoid industries, lasted during approximately 34–26 ka. The Late Upper Paleolithic period includes both the backed-blade stage and point-tool stage, the latter appearing chronologically later than the former. This stage covers ~25–15 ka. The Final Upper Paleolithic and Incipient Jomon are distinguished by the appearance of micro- blade industries and the emergence of pottery at the end of this period.
    [Show full text]
  • NASA's First A
    NASA’s First A Aeronautics from 1958 to 2008 National Aeronautics and Space Administration Office of Communications Public Outreach Division History Program Office Washington, DC 2013 The NASA History Series NASA SP-2012-4412 NASA’s First A Aeronautics from 1958 to 2008 Robert G. Ferguson Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ferguson, Robert G. NASA’s first A : aeronautics from 1958 to 2008 / Robert G. Ferguson. p. cm. -- (The NASA history series) (NASA SP ; 2012-4412) 1. United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration--History. 2. United States. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics--History. I. Title. TL521.312.F47 2012 629.130973--dc23 2011029949 This publication is available as a free download at http://www.nasa.gov/ebooks. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Chapter 1: The First A: The Other NASA ..................................1 Chapter 2: NACA Research, 1945–58 .................................... 25 Chapter 3: Creating NASA and the Space Race ........................57 Chapter 4: Renovation and Revolution ................................... 93 Chapter 5: Cold War Revival and Ideological Muddle ............141 Chapter 6: The Icarus Decade ............................................... 175 Chapter 7: Caught in Irons ................................................... 203 Chapter 8: Conclusion .......................................................... 229 Appendix: Aeronautics Budget 235 The NASA History Series 241 Index 259 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Before naming individuals, I must express my gratitude to those who have labored, and continue to do so, to preserve and share NASA’s history. I came to this project after years of studying private industry, where sources are rare and often inaccessible. By contrast, NASA’s History Program Office and its peers at the laboratories have been toiling for five decades, archiving, cataloging, interviewing, supporting research, and underwriting authors.
    [Show full text]
  • Alternative Fuel News, Vol. 6, No. 4
    Vol. 6 - No. 4 U. S. DEPARTMENT of ENERGY An Official Publication of the Clean Cities Network and the Alternative Fuels Data Center From the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy AFVs in bIndia Cross-border exchanges foster training and trade PLUS: INSIDE: AFVs for Emergencies LNG at UPS The Hydrogen Economy Dear Readers: Since the Clean Cities Program was born a decade ago, its growth pattern has been impressive, but hardly a straight line. The program was created with strong congressional backing, primarily as a tool to implement the AFV provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct). Today it is a broad-based government-industry partnership with a diverse agenda, supporting infrastructure development and AFV deployment, now even including hybrids. In the earliest coalitions, most coordinators were overworked volunteers juggling other jobs as they sought out new stakeholders, organized events, prospected for funds, and diligently advanced the Clean Cities cause. Today’s coordinators and their staff are still stretched thin, with even more diverse duties stemming from the program’s dramatic growth. Clearly our success is a result of their remarkable market-specific adaptability. In Minnesota, for example, the Twin Cities coalition has helped create a vast network of E85 fueling stations—a response to the region’s bountiful corn crop. Texas is propane country, with abundant natural gas and oil reserves. All six Clean Cities coali- tions in Texas have exploited the state’s indigenous natural resources. One result is that Dallas County Schools now use propane in more than 800 buses. The Land of Enchantment Clean Cities Coalition deserves credit for making the most of New Mexico’s natural gas infrastructure.
    [Show full text]
  • Sustainability Book 2018 Message from the President
    Sustainability Book 2018 Message from the President Based on our corporate philosophy of “discerning new social paradigms and assuming the role of implementing such paradigms” and “building client’s trust and prospering together with clients,” Nomura Research Institute (NRI) seeks to become a “company creating future society” and contributes to the sustainable growth of society. The former Nomura Research Institute was founded in 1965 with the purpose of“service towards the promotion of industry, the economy, and the community through research surveys.” Even after merging with Nomura Computer Systems in 1988, this fundamental stance has remained unchanged. Japan faces various issues including a declining population, an aging population, concern regarding fi nancial collapse, and a decline in industrial competitiveness. When extrapolating from current conditions, it is diffi cult to image a bright future for Japan. In Japan, it is no longer possible to depend on the government. Today, regions and corporations must survive based on their own ability and responsibility. Amidst these conditions, corporations must transition from management which prioritizes only profit to management that ascertains social issues and implements solutions during business activities. This is the type of social responsibility-related activities that corporations have to carry out. In addition to taking the initiative to implement this new form of management, NRI seeks to exist as a corporation that supports our client corporations in resolving social issues through their business. Nomura Research Institute Dream up the future. That’s the Nomura Research Based on this vision, NRI endorsed the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) in May 2017 and Institute Group Corporate Philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • List of Paradoxes 1 List of Paradoxes
    List of paradoxes 1 List of paradoxes This is a list of paradoxes, grouped thematically. The grouping is approximate: Paradoxes may fit into more than one category. Because of varying definitions of the term paradox, some of the following are not considered to be paradoxes by everyone. This list collects only those instances that have been termed paradox by at least one source and which have their own article. Although considered paradoxes, some of these are based on fallacious reasoning, or incomplete/faulty analysis. Logic • Barbershop paradox: The supposition that if one of two simultaneous assumptions leads to a contradiction, the other assumption is also disproved leads to paradoxical consequences. • What the Tortoise Said to Achilles "Whatever Logic is good enough to tell me is worth writing down...," also known as Carroll's paradox, not to be confused with the physical paradox of the same name. • Crocodile Dilemma: If a crocodile steals a child and promises its return if the father can correctly guess what the crocodile will do, how should the crocodile respond in the case that the father guesses that the child will not be returned? • Catch-22 (logic): In need of something which can only be had by not being in need of it. • Drinker paradox: In any pub there is a customer such that, if he or she drinks, everybody in the pub drinks. • Paradox of entailment: Inconsistent premises always make an argument valid. • Horse paradox: All horses are the same color. • Lottery paradox: There is one winning ticket in a large lottery. It is reasonable to believe of a particular lottery ticket that it is not the winning ticket, since the probability that it is the winner is so very small, but it is not reasonable to believe that no lottery ticket will win.
    [Show full text]